


Pyramid Song

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blindness, Depression, Derealization, Double Penetration, Dream Bubbles, Exploration, F/M, Light Bondage, M/M, Multi, Self-Acceptance, Sensation Play, Sensory Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-23 01:34:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7461393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>""Were apples blue?" he asks one day, licking spiced apple butter from the corner of his mouth. It isn't the fact that he gets these things wrong, she thinks, but the way that he talks about things and colors like they exist in the past for him, concepts and sensations that return on occasion for brief visits but never come back to stay."</p><p>In which there is nothing to fear and nothing to doubt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i jumped in the river and what did i see

**Author's Note:**

> The original prompt was like this: blind!Sollux feels only tenuously connected to his body post-game because half of him is dead, but people close to him try to keep him grounded using sensory stimuli. The chapters are short because I thought that was easier on the eyes when posted on the meme. This was before the fandom knew how dream bubbles or how Sollux's blindness worked (that's how long ago I tried to fill the prompt).

"Ready?" Terezi asks, leaning intently across the small table of their communal nutrition block. Sollux nods, hands folded as he leans forward, eyelids closed over the dark orbits where his eyes used to rest. "Okay.” She smears red across his dark lips with her index finger and watches his pale gray tongue flick across it. He rolls a small seed against the ridges of his palate, tickling the roof of his mouth. Sweetness flashes briefly across his tongue before he swallows and the flavor vanishes. "Did you taste the color?" she asks, sucking the redness from her own finger.

"No," he answers, running the tip of his tongue over the nubs of his reemerging teeth. "Was that jelly?"

"Strawberry preserves," she says, rummaging through the box that sits at her side. Chalked in red and blue on its side, the color smeared with the application of a searching tongue, is a brightly scribbled 'FL4VORS.' "Ooh, I think you'll like this one!"

"Okay," he agrees passively, submitting as she brushes his lips with blue and pink and green, the occasional sour taste but nearly all sugary, bright colors, everything she likes, everything to remind him that sweetness remains in the world. She grins when he gets the colors and flavors wrong, laughs and insults him and laughs again at the retorts he delivers through his crooked, toothless smirk. It seems to make him happy. Terezi never gives up the lessons, despite the increasing feeling that half his mind is somewhere far from the small hive they and Karkat share.

"Were apples blue?" he asks one day, licking spiced apple butter from the corner of his mouth. It isn't the fact that he gets it wrong, she thinks, but the way that he talks about things and colors like they exist in the past for him, concepts and sensations that return on occasion for brief visits but never come back to stay.

"Yeah," she answers, punctuating the word with a harsh laugh that lets him know he got it wrong. "Blue as cherries."

"Red," he says pensively - he never gets the cherries wrong - before his lips curve in a grin. "Fuck you."

"Ooh, well, maybe so." She cackles, licking her multicolored fingers and idly swinging her feet as she reaches for another jar. "Maybe later."

* * *

"Ready?" Karkat asks, pushing a downy fragment of fabric into Sollux's hand. Piles of material lie around them where they sit on the floor of Sollux's respiteblock, heaped where Karkat dropped them in a riotous, tangled mess. "Kanaya said this one's chenille. It's sort of this weird pale green." Sollux turns his head as though he can see it, directing the dark sockets of his eyes down in a way that never ceases to strike Karkat as uncanny.

"It's nice. Soft."

"There's also velvet and silk. They're both red." He racks his memory for the names of all the fabrics Kanaya sent, rubbing them between his own fingers as though to prompt himself. "Madras," he remembers suddenly, "it's sort of checkered and it's fucking hideous actually, and burg...no, organdy. Shit." He shoves a piece of velvet into one of Sollux's thin hands, embarrassed by the silence. "Batiste? I forgot a lot of these."

"That's okay," Sollux says, setting down the velvet and groping around for something else, picking up a grosgrain ribbon. He threads it between his fingers, pulling one end to slip it free, enjoying the slide of it against his skin. "I won't remember them anyway."

"Kanaya sent it," Karkat explains, "so if there's anything you like touching, she'll make it into something you can wear. You'd look stupid in some of it though," he adds as Sollux's lips curve in a placid smile.

"I don't look stupid stumbling around with half my teeth gone and getting colors wrong, but I'll look like a total fucking retard if I do it wearing satin."

"That's probably why she didn't send satin, asshole," Karkat retorts automatically. He almost follows it up with what he really wants to say, that Sollux doesn't look or sound stupid at all and no one thinks less of him, that if anyone seriously gave him shit about it they would end up short a few teeth themselves, but instead he swallows hard and scoops up a thick, soft, fuzzy fabric with a name he has already forgotten. He presses the gray cloth against the side of Sollux's face, watching as he lifts hands trailing bright ribbons and buries his fingers in the long nap of it.

"This one is nice," he says agreeably, smiling. "I like this one."


	2. black-eyed angels swam with me

"Ready or not!" Terezi calls before diving into her recuperacoon, elbowing Karkat out of the way.

"What the fuck?" Karkat asks, eyes blearily opening as Terezi elbows him harder. "What do you want, it's the middle of the day."

"I'm always up in the middle of the day," Terezi points out. "Except today because I'm going to sleep, so move your ass." He obediently rolls over, staring up at the arched ceiling of her recuperacoon as she curls snugly against him. Even now that there is little reason to stay awake and his nightmares have subsided into dreamlessness, he never stops finding it hard to sleep. Terezi has no such trouble, her breathing instantly regular and soft against his arm. A smear of apricot jam marks her forehead. He brushes it away with a careful thumb, accidentally replacing it with a smear of sopor.

"That didn't help," he sleepily informs her, examining the soft fringes of her eyelashes and the shadows they cast on her cheeks.

"Nope," she answers, completely awake. She makes her move before he has the chance to get defensive, gleefully rolling over to straddle his waist as she scoops up a handful of slime. She drops it on his head with an air of righteousness and a judicious nod that very nearly makes up for her lack of accuracy as she aims for his hair and hits his face.

"Augh," he sputters, spitting out a little sopor and wiping it away, his hair jutting out in tangled snarls and spikes. "What the hell."

"Retribution," she explains soberly, drawing a smiley face on his forehead.

"Throwing slime in my face for cleaning jelly off you?" he snaps as she climbs off and begins to settle in again, snorting with laughter. She knows already that Karkat will never retaliate, smells his acceptance as he rolls over to face her. "Great fucking plan, looks like justice is served."

"I thought so! Now we're even," she yawns, settling down to gather him into an embrace and a quick, familiar kiss. "Besides," she adds with a sudden squeeze, "it's fun." He hesitantly returns the embrace just as she expects he will, a lifetime of self-hatred and self-doubt leaving him hungry as ever for the affection she has begun to learn how to demonstrate, remaining beside her even as she begins peaceably snoring in his ear.

* * *

"Hello?" Sollux calls, hours later, thumping on the edge of the recuperacoon entrance with one hand. "I'm coming in."

"What the fuck," Karkat snarls. "I just fell asleep. Again. Is this some kind of horrible scheme both of you concocted to make sure my sleeping schedule gets even more fucked up than it already is? Because have I got news for you both, and that news consists of, in giant teal newsprint on hideous yellow paper, the two words 'fuck' and 'you' repeated over and over in the hugest font for sixty pages. It will be so loud that even you, the blind guy who can't taste worth a shit, will be able to read it loud and clear at twenty paces."

"Oh my god, shut up." Terezi rolls over, yawning.

"Eheheh, holy shit. I'm still coming in." Sollux immediately trips over the edge but their arms are already expectant, poised to catch him. He feels Terezi's lean curves and Karkat's wiry angularity press against his sides as they settle him comfortably between them, the sopor soothing and warmed by Karkat's heat. "I was sleeping in my chair," he says, "and I woke up, so I..."

For an instant he wants to tell them about his effort to dream, floating for hours through the blackness of the void in his attempt to find the right bubble - her bubble, the one that somehow eludes him no matter how hard he tries - but instead he falls silent. "I came here instead," he finally says. A cool arm encircles his waist, pressing the soft material of his shirt against his belly as a hot tongue licks apricot jam from the corner of his mouth and his nose briefly fills with the clean, musky scent of Karkat. Too late he realizes that his fuzzy chartreuse tunic will be ruined, but even as he hastily tries to get up, Terezi pulls him back and pours slime on his forehead.

"Justice for all," she sleepily declaims for reasons he cannot fathom. Karkat snorts.

"Thank god that fucking sweater is done for," he says as he sits up, seizing Sollux and yanking the garment off. "Why did you ever let Terezi pick the color, it was the most heinous thing I've ever seen in an entire lifetime of seeing things. With my eyes. Which are the only working eyes in this entire hive, so I think you could have some goddamn respect for them by not wearing that."

"What difference does it make to me?" he asks, reaching over to touch Karkat's face as he lies back down, feeling him freeze into accustomed immobility as he allows Sollux to explore him. "TZ thinks I'm delicious."

"Yeah, majority rules," Terezi states. "Two-thirds of us declare chartreuse delicious and completely not unsightly at all, because two-thirds of us don't give a shit."

"I can't taste-" Sollux begins, but she turns him over and guides his hands to her chest, giving his horns a quick squeeze. He trails off, scenting the faint, peppery spice of her pheromones as his fingers press into the soft curves. "Yeah, okay. It's fucking amazing. The best color. I'm declaring it."

"The motion passes," she announces triumphantly.

"This whole system's corrupt!" Karkat retorts.

"You're just mad no one is groping you. I'm getting all these delicious gropes over here and not leaving any for you. You seem pretty bitter right now," she adds with a loud sniff.

"Yeah, maybe, but that doesn't make me less right. Or tired."

"Excellent point," she agrees. Sollux turns again, gracelessly crawling over Karkat to shove him into the middle.

"Now you'll get all the gropes," he murmurs, smiling.

"Oh, great," Karkat growls as both of them press up against him, an instant tangle of arms and legs and quiet, synchronized cackling as hands play quickly over his body, pinching and squeezing. "Great, fantastic, now I have double the heatsinks stealing my body temperature and _who just grabbed my ass_ -"

"Thought you were tired, KK."

"Yeah," Terezi agrees with an exaggerated yawn and another quick grab. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

"Fuck you both. Forever."

"Eheheh."


	3. a moon full of stars and astral cars

Sollux feels the strange rasp of his eyelids over firm surfaces as he blinks his white eyes, the sensation grown strange and uncanny after its absence, and knows that he sleeps. He waves an experimental hand in front of his face, but the vague shapes of light and darkness are incomprehensible. The idea that his brain is losing the ability to interpret visual data upsets him less than he imagined. The easiest thing is not to dream anyway; each bubble carries old memories that fracture his other self, leaving him distant and strange in the waking world. There are few things that Sollux cares to relive. There is nothing to see.

In the space beyond the Furthest Ring, the lack of boundaries or anything to touch breaks him apart bit by seeking bit into useless power and remnants of fading memory, far beyond the ability to feel or react to anything. The others seem incalculably far away with the fragmented half of him they keep. The handrails lining the walls of their hive, the small, comfortable spaces where he knows the right amount of steps to take, the places where his voice can be heard and answered, are all things of another world. Alone in the expanse of darkness, this half is left with nothing but the vague desire to reach the bubble he needs. When he finds it, he thinks, everything will be over.

* * *

Sollux wakes with a strangled yelp and lashes out reflexively as Terezi bites his ear, his hand connecting with something hard that puts up a furious growling and shoves him away. He flounders panicked in the sopor, his mind cycling into frantic activity as he makes sense of the sensation of the slime enclosing his body, familiar smells and sounds flooding in like an overwhelming cascade before he can adjust. "Evening," Terezi informs him. "You smacked Karkles right in the face. Hehehehe."

"You bastard," Karkat swears devoutly, his raspy voice suddenly nasal. "Fine, I'm done sleeping for the rest of my goddamn life. Obviously there's nowhere I'm safe from your clumsy-ass machinations and oh _fuck_ I think my nose is bleeding. Shit! Is my nose bleeding?"

"Nope!" Terezi says, audibly disappointed. Sollux rolls over at that, wrapping his arms around her with such vehemence that she makes a startled noise before she returns his embrace, comprehending. Her arms press into his sides just right and he knows where he begins and ends, the dimensions of his body contained and real. "Damn. Bad dream?"

"No," he answers, burying a hand in her thick hair, inhaling her scent. Her petite form stays cool even in the warm sopor, so full of life he can almost feel the buzz of it against his palms. She breathes steadily in and out, skin and bones and spicy pheromones that strip away the feeling of unreality layer by layer until he feels solid and alive again, flesh and nerves and senses humming, his body substantial and heavy in the slime. "I'm okay."

"Liar," she accuses. “Dreams are the enemy.”

"I didn't go into any bubbles," he murmurs, listening to the faint slosh as Karkat approaches them, settling across from Terezi. "Is my ear bleeding?"

"Let's see," she says, wriggling out of his arms to sit up and lean over him, smiling and nodding slightly as Karkat rubs one of her horns in a silent question. A shiver runs down Sollux's spine as a cool tongue swipes along the curve of his ear, licking at the pointed tip. "Nope. But you smell pretty excited about the idea. Nomph!" she exclaims, biting down harder.

"Ow, fuck!" He sits up, the blackened orbits of his eyes wide at the unmistakable itch of blood welling in the shallow marks left by her teeth. "What the hell, TZ-"

"Just reminding you where you are," she says, her voice abruptly serious. She runs her index finger along the scraped rim of his ear, pushes the yellow-smeared fingertip into his mouth. "We're both going to remind you," she tells him as his tongue flicks lightly over the blood.

"So, you-" Sollux begins before she pushes him backward into Karkat with a brief, explosive laugh. Warm arms encircle him to pull him into a tight hug from behind, cool hands already working deftly at the button of his jeans. Karkat licks the blood from the point of his ear, tongue gliding wetly over the bite mark as his nose bumps the base of a horn. The stinging pain fades as he closes his mouth over the scrapes and gently sucks at the injury. "Okay," Sollux murmurs as Terezi yanks at his pant legs. "Oh fuck, okay, yeah. This is a thing. I can do this."

"You're not doing anything," Karkat mumbles in his ear, half commanding and half petulant, "and you're not even bothering to sound excited about it, you ungrateful deadpan shitheel."

"Sorry," he says sarcastically, arching up to let Terezi pull his jeans away and groping for Karkat's horns. "Wow," he continues, fingers jabbing Karkat beneath the chin and then caressing the sides of his face, "I'm so excited, KK. And sort of inaccurate, but who gives a shit, check out how excited I am."

"I can literally see how excited you are. Your bulge is twirling like a goddamn lasso at a rodeo down thmmph," he observes as Sollux sticks several fingers in his mouth.

"Yeah, if I had to choose one thing to compare my junk to, it would definitely be a length of rope. You know, all thin and limp and shit. Thanks KK, that's so fucking hot, I'm really in the mood now."

"Actually," Terezi proclaims, coaxing the tendril of his bulge fully from its bone sheath by teasing the tapered end with her fingertips, "his impossibly shitty dirty talk gives me a fantastic idea! You can tell by my eyebrows. Hey, Karkat, tell him what my eyebrows are doing. It's pretty sexy."

"Oh yeah," Sollux agrees, grinning and completely distracted from his earlier mood, engaged by the stimuli. "Eyebrow report."

"What the fuck!" Karkat snaps, offended. "Actually, fine, you know what? They're sort of doing the wave. It's probably meant to be suggestive like half the stuff she does, but it just makes her look fucking constipated or something. Ow, quit it," he growls as Terezi reaches around Sollux to jab him deftly in the ribs.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. My sexy eyebrows will return in just a minute," she vows, darting from the recuperacoon and leaving a trail of slime in her wake.

"So what do you think she's doing?" Sollux asks, turning around and leaning forward, inadvertently bumping his forehead against Karkat's in an attempt to find his mouth. Callused fingers press gently up beneath his chin to angle his head.

"How the fuck would I know? On the sliding scale of batshit fucking insanity, you're way closer to her level than I am. You'd probably expect me to be some sort of expert as the only normal person in this entire hive, but no, some things are in fact beyond even my incredible discernment." He examines Sollux's face, the faint scars of psychic exertion on his forehead and the wide, hollow sockets of his eyes. With his index finger he traces the marks, watching Sollux's expression change from curiosity to irritation.

"Hey," he begins tersely just before warm lips press against his own and Karkat’s hands engulf his horns.

"Shut up," Karkat says helpfully, pushing him down and stretching out beside him. Sollux blindly tries to match his motions, quick, glancing open-mouthed kisses that at first go too quickly to meet but slow down until he can return them, breathing harder as he slides his hands up Karkat's shirt and relishes the heat. By the time Karkat's tongue finally slides against his the air is thick with his own pheromones, signaling an almost embarrassing receptivity as Karkat sits up for a moment and takes off his long-sleeved shirt, his body casting off intoxicating heat and the strong, musky scent of his mating fondness. The commingled smells cause pulsing heat to pool between Sollux's thin legs, his nook receptive and his bulge writhing excitedly.

"Nice," Sollux says a little breathlessly, searching for Karkat's mouth and kissing his jaw instead, moving up to his cheek and brushing dry lips over the feverish heat. His tongue flicks against it and redness bursts sweet and ripe across his tongue. "You're flushed. I can taste it. Fuck, you smell great."

"I know," Karkat snaps, "so where is she? She’s kind of missing out."

"On what? It's not like we all could have done that part at the same time. Wait, we sort of could. Yeah, on second thought, go get her, I’ll take turns. Or maybe you can just watch for a while, that sounds fun-"

"I'm talking about how you look right now, dipshit. Smell, I mean. Also thanks for trying to leave me out, I know it would be some terrible sin if you weren't getting all the attention." His eyes widen as Sollux stiffens against him. "Fuck, you know I don't mean that. Shit," he snaps abruptly, angry at himself, crushing Sollux's skinny frame to his chest in a furious hug. "How am I so fucking useless at this?"

"I could smell you from across the hive," Terezi declares as she suddenly leans into the recuperacoon entrance. She grins as Karkat jumps, guilt radiating from him in a bitter wave. "It smelled pretty hot, except now that I’m here, close up, it smells more like socially awkward dipshits. Weird! No one's getting left out, stupid," she adds, waggling her eyebrows at Karkat until he snorts and looks away, embarrassed. "And look what I've brought for us."


	4. and all the things i used to see

"Ready?" Terezi asks, tightening the soft, braided ribbons around Sollux's wrists. He raises his hands, letting her hook the fabric over one of the handles they installed for him in the recuperacoon; she allows enough slack to let his elbows flex but keeps him on his knees with his hands up, body exposed to their touch.

"Yeah," he answers, gasping as Terezi squeezes his horns and a rolling wave of pleasure moves down his spine. Four mismatched bows trail their ribbons from the bony protrusions, tied tight enough to compress the sensitive membranes at their bases. The fabric dampens his senses enough that the ambient temperature barely filters through. His proprioception is subtly altered by the pressure; he feels clumsy, acutely aware of his awkward body.

"He seems ready," Terezi says. Sollux shivers as the points of her fingershields trail down his vulnerable chest, the sudden coolness like fine trails of ice on his skin. The sensation feathers out along his nerves. "Festive. _Stylish._ "

"More like fucking stupid," Karkat snaps. "They could have all been the same color, at least. Black, maybe. Or gray. Or all dark yellow."

"Boring!" Terezi laughs.

"It's not boring," Karkat objects irritably. "The yellow ones bring out how flushed-" He trails off with an embarrassed growl.

“All these colors are better than banana. Grape and orange and cherry and lemon. And he's mustard, so banana would just be _revolting_." She leans over to nibble a horn, teeth pressing into the ribbon.

"Oh _nice_ ," Sollux breathes.

"And you. Terezi. Why are you still wearing pants?" Karkat complains. "Stop doing that, it's ruining this whole show for me. Inconsiderate as shit." Terezi laughs throatily and Sollux listens to the sound of shifting fabric, grinning expectantly.

“Sure, why not. You too, though. Take it off.” Her scent fills the recuperacoon all at once and Karkat shivers hard enough to send a vibration through the sopor, fresh mating fondness rising from him in waves. Sollux greedily inhales the mingled smells, squirming as his bulge curls against his belly. "How's that?"

"It could be worse,” Karkat allows.

"I think he's actually complimenting me," she informs Sollux in a stage whisper. "Eyebrow report: they are practically _off my face_."

"I think I need to ask KN for a new fuzzy sweater," he whispers back. "But yellow this time."

"Oh yeah, gotta bring out how flushed you are!"

"What the fuck!?” Karkat sputters. “I'm never telling either of you assholes anything I like ever again."

"But do you like this?" she asks. Sollux inhales again as he listens to the quiet slosh of the sopor and the quickening of Karkat’s breath, rubbing his own thighs together in an attempt to stimulate his nook; even in the absence of a visual he can smell Karkat enjoying whatever she's doing. His bulge engages in a creditable attempt to tie itself in a knot. "Despite the intolerable absence of color coordination,” Terezi concludes breathlessly.

"I’m just saying it could be better!” Karkat retorts.

“Please,” Sollux finally says, feeling intrusive but fairly sure that he will explode from either the strangeness of his limited senses or sexual tension; his body shivers with one or the other and he can’t quite work out which.

“Oh,” Terezi answers. He can hear the smile, the sharp-edged joy behind the word. “I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

Sollux kneels in the slime as they position him between them, hands still bound above his head as Karkat pulls him closer from behind. The warmth beneath him makes his thorax hum with subvocal pleasure as Karkat strokes his thighs and pulls them wider, coaxing him down. Lightning courses up his spine at the unexpected stimulus of a hot bulge coiling around his own from behind.

“ _Yes,_ ” he gasps.

"Get on with it," Terezi urges. "So boring. Yawn."

"How can you just sit there unmoved by this glorious show," Karkat complains, pulling back. Sollux curls his bulge backward and struggles to find Karkat again by ambient temperature alone. "I know it's a pheromone cornucopia for your face."

"Yeah, but I'm not fucking any part of that cornucopia right now, which is sort of the point."

"That is the worst metaphor. You don’t fuck a cornucopia. And why am I behind him? He's probably making a hilarious face right now, what are you doing-"

“Assholes,” Sollux interjects plaintively, ignored.

"Glad you asked!" Terezi proclaims as Sollux curls his bulge back toward his own nook, panting in frustration. "We're going to make a delicious mustard sandwich. We're going to fuck your cornucopia," she whispers in Sollux's ear, grinning as her hand wraps around his bulge and yanks it away from his waiting nook.

"It's really fucking unfair that you can say something that stupid and sound hot,” Karkat complains.

"That seriously is the worst euphemism," Sollux murmurs breathlessly. "But my cornucopia’s ready.”

"You brought enough for everyone?" she asks.

"Yes," he manages, able to hear his own pulse in his ears even as he feels its throb in his nook. "There's definitely enough for two." She pushes his shoulders, positioning him with a quick squeeze of his bound horns. Her cool hands on his fevered skin set him trembling and when Karkat touches him, warm and rough on his hips, he shudders like a convulsion.

“Are you okay?” Karkat asks, startled. Sollux takes a deep breath as Terezi tilts him back, his lanky frame pliant in her arms.

“Think it’s because of my horns. You feel amazing,” he says, his anxiety muted with their hands posing and supporting him. “You smell so good. Both of you-”

“Yeah,” Karkat says impulsively, “yeah, you feel good too-”

“Isn’t that sweet!” Terezi interrupts with a harsh laugh. “Now stay right there.” An instant of slick, sliding noises ensue and Sollux stiffens, breath escaping in a sudden burst as two bulgetips flick against his waiting nook. He can feel the temperature of each, the slight pull as the tips enter, his hypersensitized flesh so ready for stimulus that it jumps and clenches at even the thought of what is about to happen. His own bulge writhes neglected against his belly. “Your cornucopia _is_ ready.”

“Holy fuck,” Karkat grates out. His thumbs caress Sollux’s hips, hands gently stabilizing him. “You haven’t let that go yet. Are you gonna do that the whole fucking time, because if so I’m still not going to leave but I will _threaten_ to leave until you’ll wish I actually would.”

“So get a move on already,” Terezi interrupts.

"Okay," Sollux breathes, quivering as they slide in together, cautiously nudging and then stretching. "Okay. Oh shit," he pants, the slight tremble increasing to a full-body shake as Karkat's hands close tighter around his hips and both bulges writhe slow and slick into him.

"Is it too much?" Karkat asks as they hit the first receptor, pressing hard and moving against it. Four hands steady his body as he spasms involuntarily. They move _differently_ , Karkat’s thicker bulge squirming slowly along its full length and Terezi flicking agilely against the receptor; in an adrenaline haze Sollux thinks he can feel them individually, the heat and the coolness soothing in turns as the bulges twist slowly.

“It’s good,” he manages, breathless with it. “It’s good, I’m - I’m good, I’m okay, _wow._ ”

"See," Terezi says, rocking him atop Karkat and stroking his bound horns. The stimulus against his internal receptors is so intense that he would feel tears prickle at the corners of his eyes if his tear ducts were unscarred, that even though his sockets are dry he still feels strange twinges at their corners as she teases him.

As usual, it seems as though Terezi knows; her breath puffs softly against his face before her cool tongue touches the scarred corner of his burnt-out left eye. Her hands stay around his horns and Karkat’s hands around his hips as she kisses the sunken eyelids, holding his head and body in place as the twined bulges lash steadily. His nook spasms like he wants to swallow them and he hears Karkat groan, pushing harder against the receptors in response.

“ _Aaaah,_ ” Sollux gasps, clenching.

"You're with us,” Terezi says between kisses against his hollow eyes, releasing one horn to stroke his lips with the tips of her fingers. Her skin tastes indefinably teal, a faint salt-bitter flavor; he licks at her fingertips, wanting to please her, wanting anything. “You're not going anywhere."

“No,” he says. “No, I want this.”

"Also you’re not going anywhere because you can't move your legs right now and you’re secured to the ceiling," Karkat interjects, hands shaking almost imperceptibly around Sollux’s waist.

"Shut up, shut up, I can’t..." Sollux trails off, overcome. Terezi licks at the scarred rim of his eyelid and into the hollow space beyond, the bare edge of wetness inside the socket a little like worship. His heart throbs with some nameless and humbling sweetness. “I can’t deal with that,” he gasps.

"Deal with what?" Karkat asks, tweaking his vestigial nubs. “You okay?”

“Can't handle all these bulges you’re taking?” Terezi asks as she rolls her hips and finally, _finally_ pushes further in, tongue laving the scars beneath his burned-out eyes one last time.

"Oh - _good_ ," he pants, his own bulge undulating against the firm curve of Terezi's belly as they work their way gradually in. The slow stretch of his nook is warm and bizarre, the discomfort far more transitory than the pleasurable fullness. He clenches and shudders as Karkat’s rough hands slide between his thighs and spread him wider, pulling him down and letting the twined bulges tease the next ring of receptors. The noise that comes out of him is more a sob than a moan, a high nasal thing that makes Terezi snicker as she wriggles further in and pulls Karkat with her.

They press taut and flush against everything in him that wants to be touched, the fullness setting off each ring of receptors until all he can feel is warm blood pounding around the place where they penetrate him, each pulse sending a lazy bolt of pleasure up his spine. The relentless wash of pleasure confuses his senses, makes the differing temperatures of their hands on him strange and extreme.

They fill him enough that even the normal clench of his nook makes the pressure unbearably intense, their combined bulges compressing his receptors so hard it whites out his thoughts even before Terezi wraps cool fingers around his bulge. “What an awkward fucking angle,” Karkat whines. Sollux surprises himself by crying out, a weird, raw sound as he clenches around them again.

“KK,” he gasps. Suddenly he is piercingly aware of his body again, anchored at the top and bottom, encircled safely by their arms. “Ffff _fuck_.”

“That’s all you have? And you talk shit about my dirty talk,” Karkat snipes. Sollux lolls against him, half-oblivious and stunned by the sensation as they writhe further inside, and responds with another sobbing gasp. Nothing in him can imagine how to respond. He thinks about the combined thickness of them, how far inside him they reach. “Yeah, fucking right that’s all you can say.”

“More,” he says, his voice coming out more shaky and overwhelmed than challenging. Karkat makes a sound at that, a bitten-off little moan, and goes quiet. “F-fuck my cornucopia,” he breathes, chest heaving in a half-hysterical giggle.

“Oh my _god_ , I should - nn - have left when I had the chance.”

“Almost done,” Terezi says good-naturedly, stroking his bulge with her fingernails and then her palm, harder, the alternating sensations enough to send it into a rigid spasm. “A little more. You’re so good!”

“I, I...I could still leave, I’m just saying-”

Sollux shudders as they slide in to the hilts, his slim frame pinned between them as they pass careful hands over his ribs, his belly, his bound horns. Terezi’s fingershields press sharp into his grubscars but she soothes him down with the soft, cold pads of her fingertips when he squirms; she laughs when he shudders, kissing and licking a cool line over his clavicle as Karkat wraps a rough hand around his bulge and thumbs the tip.

When Terezi licks into his open mouth he can barely manage the coordination to return the kiss, moaning into her mouth as she lashes hard against a receptor. Karkat presses against it afterward with his longer undulations, firm and perfect, bringing him up and pulling him back. The feelings are good enough to put him on the edge but overwhelming, too intense to tip him over; he shudders and fights the restraints, not wanting to escape but wanting to move and struggle, the arousal pent up in his body too much to burn off without motion.

“Look at that,” Terezi says. The pride in her voice makes his heart climb several inches. “You did it, your cornucopia _delivered_.”

“That’s _also_ not what those do,” he says, riding high enough on adrenaline to assemble a full sentence.

“You fucking love it, don’t you?” Karkat asks, his acerbic words coming out more soft and astonished. “You want more?”

“Please,” he breathes, nook throbbing around their combined thicknesses. The sensations are so numerous they swamp his inhibited processing abilities with conflicting pleasures and scents, but their hands on him are gentle and even the throbbing, pulsing ache in his lower spine and between his legs is satisfying; he trusts them so much that it wakes another small ache behind his ribs.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” Karkat says as he finally unties one of the ribbons and teases the abused, hypersensitized membrane of a large horn with his fingers. Terezi laughs and does the same thing to the opposing horn; Sollux spasms and cries out in a raw voice that takes him by surprise, blood rushing to his head as his heart pounds. The world spins around him as sensation floods the unbound horns, a violent throbbing and a sudden sensitivity to the ambient temperature, the moisture in the air, the fingers stroking and tweaking them until he loses his bearings and spasms helplessly against Karkat. When he goes over, their bulges coiling and lashing inside him at what feels like a frantic pace, he barely has the breath to whimper; he comes so hard that his stuffed nook floods around them, his body shaking like he’s going to fall apart as they hold him up and finally, mercifully lay off his horns.

He shivers with aftershocks as they pull out, his body juddering and shaking like the arousal built up in his abdomen is too much to be expelled, like his body is trying to push it out as his genetic material gushes after them. Terezi unties the knot around his wrists and Karkat eases him down into the slime, holding his trembling body close as she presses bony hands into the muscles of his shoulders and kneads with a little too much gusto. “How was it?” she asks. He giggles, shaky and higher than he means to, a reedy little ‘ehehe’ and a disjointed pap to Karkat’s upper arm.

“My cornucopia’s never _been_ so satisfied,” he declares.

“Oh look, he’s still got his shit together enough to hit me _and_ continue that fuckawful joke! Of course he fucking does.”

“Listen, Karkat,” Terezi says soberly, “cornucopias are widely known for being easily satisfied, so it makes perfect sense.”

“Oh my god, exactly. KK, stop criticizing my jokes, they’re hilarious, and...and.” His limbs are jelly as he slides a shaking hand down to Karkat’s bulge, twining his fingers around it. “Mmh.”

“Hey,” Karkat says, disentangling his grip. “You’re going to sleep.”

“And you’re not going to dream this time,” Terezi orders.

“Nnnnn,” Sollux objects, but keens and buries his face in Karkat’s shoulder as Terezi unbinds his small horns. A warm hand strokes his hair as he processes the sensations and he doesn’t feel as ashamed as he thinks he probably should; they touch him, holding him in the sopor and soothing him with paps and strokes, until it’s too late to do anything but lapse into unconsciousness.

Sollux has no dreams that day.


	5. all my lovers were there with me

"So listen up, dumbshit." Karkat pushes Sollux into one of the soft chairs of the living block, the harshness in his face and voice belied by the carefulness of his hands. "I don't even know what you used to like to listen to, but in comparison to what you're about to hear, it fucking sucked." He kneels and unclasps the instrument case with a series of quiet snaps. Terezi cradles two little drums in her lap, tapping them with her sharp fingershields as she sits in the middle of the room.

“You know it was electronica,” she offers. “Chiptunes and shit. Video game music. Metal?” Her fingers strike the drums with an arrhythmic beat that seems loud in the quiet room. “Yeah, he’s the type to like metal.”

"This is fine," Sollux murmurs.

"That's not music," Karkat snaps, "are you also deaf-"

"I mean the sound of you yelling at me for no reason. Familiar."

"Figures, this is what I get for trying to do you a fucking favor," Karkat mumbles. Sitting down in front of the chair, he settles the long, teardrop-shaped rubab in his lap, experimentally twanging one of its strings.

"Where'd you even learn this?" Terezi asks.

"Distance schoolfeeding. My lusus wanted me to be well-rounded," Karkat explains, "so I wouldn't grow up to be a nerdy self-absorbed philistine, like some of our mutual acquaintances and also present company. Want to touch it?" Sollux obliges, reaching out to brush his fingers over the many ornate, tapering pegs that jut from the neck of the instrument, the two deep divots in the sides of the sound-chamber. The worst thing, Karkat thinks, is that he slips away so passively, never lashing out. If he pushed back at them there would be something to grab. His continual withdrawal is smooth, leaving nothing to touch or hold.

"I'm playing the drums," Terezi informs him. "But they're too quiet. Should have gotten me louder drums," she remonstrates, making a face at Karkat. " _Giant_ drums."

"As stupid and self-loathing as I am basically all the time, I'm somehow still not stupid or self-loathing enough to give you giant drums." Karkat holds the instrument up, allowing Sollux to touch the strings and run his fingertips over the frets. "I'm probably sort of rusty."

"I'm not expecting much," Sollux murmurs.

"Would you stop making him fondle your instrument and get this show on the road already?" Terezi asks, grinning as Karkat stiffens and pulls the rubab away.

"Fucking gross." Face set in concentration, Karkat settles the instrument in his lap again, his right hand motionless near the base and the left taking position on the frets. "Ready?" he adds unnecessarily before he begins, the fingers of his left hand playing lightly along the top of the neck.

"Huh," Terezi says, raising her eyebrows at the irregular tempo. The rubab emits an oddly flat, melodic noise that rises in sharp twangs, the echoing resonance returning continually to the same low and hypnotic strumming. She sits back as a quicker tempo emerges and Karkat hits his stride, slowing at times but improving with each repetition, changing pitches and jumping freely from note to echoing note. The air is at first thick with concentration and the low, hypnotic tone, but a thread of bright red embarrassment filters through to her nose as he becomes aware of their attention and Terezi commences slapping the drums without any particular rhythm, throwing her entire body into forcing the loudest sounds possible from the tiny instruments.

"Fucking awful," Karkat declares irritably, thrown off but already regaining his momentum. She cackles harder as she hammers the drums with alternating hands, banishing his embarrassment with a frenetic flurry of taps and a complete absence of style or tempo as he loses his pace and begins to hit notes at random. "What the hell, we’re not playing troll jazz."

"Oh my god," she berates him through a widening grin. “Get on my level already." Despite the frustrated tone of Karkat's growling, she smells his brief, rare smile as he slows down. Sollux abruptly laughs, not an uncharitable snicker or chuckle but a quiet, self-conscious sound hidden behind the hand he lifts to his face. Terezi scuttles agilely across the floor with her drums to place one in his lap.

"That's exactly what I need right now," Karkat announces, stopping for a moment. "Two assholes with no rhythm screwing this up for me." Despite his tone she can smell his relief, the knowledge that they've reached him.

"Good!" Terezi declares as Sollux's hands distractedly explore the cords crisscrossing the smooth sides of the drum. His mouth moves slightly as though to say something, but no words come out as his thin fingers splay soundlessly over the smooth top of the instrument.

"Whatever," Karkat says, rolling his eyes as he turns his attention to playing again.

* * *

"Cinnamon," Sollux says quietly, sprawled in the sopor. "It's brown."

"Yup," Terezi agrees, waving her spice-coated index finger beneath his nose. "You know, you can't eat a whole spoonful of it at once. Sticks in your squawk blister, then gets up in your sniff node and all you see is brown for about five minutes. I learned that the hard way." She pauses, lips drawing back in a fierce grin. "I don't think Karkat has, though. We'll make a dare out of it. You know how he gets, it’ll be easy." Through the savory and spicy aromas heavy in the room she smells the faint, tangy scent Sollux gives off when he falls asleep, the colorful smudges of flavors left half-tasted on his lips. She wipes them away and props him up against the wall.

More and more often, this is how things go: he absorbs sounds and flavors like light into a black hole. She cannot shake the impression that no matter how accurate his guesses are or how barbed her jokes are when he fails, the half of him that tastes nothing has begun to grow.

"This is cluckbeast stock," she says, pouring a small amount in at the corner of his mouth. "It has a lot of pepper in it," she adds, taking a quick drink from the mug herself as he coughs and stirs.

"I’m not sick," he mumbles, shaking his head and coughing again. “Ugh, fuck you.”

"You're losing weight."

“I’m okay,” he sighs, rolling over. “Just tired.”

“Dreams are the enemy,” she reminds him, suddenly not smiling as she drinks another mouthful of soup and coughs a little herself. “Don’t forget that,” she says, a little more forceful, but Sollux is already asleep.

* * *

Sollux has drifted through the cosmos for eons. Over the ages he has developed the sensitivity to scent things in the distance that are senseless, arcs and whorls like tentacles of eldritch and irrational size, but the vastness of the space he traverses still leaves him lost. There are many bubbles that contain nothing he wants. The memories inside have grown unfamiliar with the intermingled thought and influence of people he has never met or cared about. Sollux has no interest in meeting them. They are welcome to the tangled, ugly skein of his memories.

More and more often, this is how things are: he sees nothing, smells and tastes nonsensical pastel colors, and finds no hint of the ocean. Sollux has never seen the ocean. He tries to grasp what it might be like, the sounds and scents that might lead him to the right bubble. She will be near the ocean, he assumes. _Wrassumes_ , he corrects himself. In the twisting depths of space, Sollux tries to think of fish puns. Gradually, he realizes he can remember the shape of her goggles but lacks the shape of her face, what anything about her had looked like in any concrete sense. He has started to lose the memory of her voice.

Somewhere, incalculably far away, there is a part of him that is exhausted and wakes just to bathe and eat. He feels hollowed out, pithed in a way that has removed something vital from inside him. Things are fed to him in an attempt to fill that emptiness. Things are put in and on him to make him heavy and sated and anchored, but he is worn-down in a familiar way that makes it impossible for any of it to make contact. There is nothing inside him to touch or to hold; nothing in him reacts anymore. Sollux focuses on salt, the bitterness soaking into his tongue, and drifts.


	6. all my past and futures

Sollux steps onto the stool and reaches up for the high shelf, groping for the stack of keyboards he remembers stashing there. His fingers pass over the smooth, squishy shells of dead husktops, the corpses of older keyboards that have been licked and beaten to death. Inquisitive tongues, temperamental fists. There are a few he has managed to save over the sweeps, cobbling them together from the broken parts.

His hand knocks over something soft that falls from the shelf and strikes his head as it falls. He wavers, grips the edge of the shelf for balance, and forgets about the keyboard. “Oh,” he says out loud, clambering down and dropping to his knees as though stricken. His straying hand seizes upon a round body, awkwardly stitched tendrils and a plump little fiberfill-stuffed form. " _Oh._ "

Sollux holds the stuffed cuttlefish, fingers traversing its form again and again, until Karkat finds him. “Okay, shit,” he says awkwardly. Sollux fails to respond, the craters of his eyes fixed on the floor. “Um, yeah, we didn’t throw that away. Someday you would have...I mean, I thought you might sort of get to a place where…”

“What color was this?” Sollux asks. “Was it pink? I don’t remember.”

“Shit, man.” Karkat runs his fingers through his hair and clutches at his own horns. The urge to take the thing away is almost insurmountable; there is a cast to Sollux’s features that fills his abdomen with ice, floods him with regret. Throwing it away would have been so simple, he thinks. “It’s blue and red.”

“Yeah.” Sollux sniffs long and deep, expression unfocused. “Seems right. Okay.”

“No, bro, it’s...it’s not okay, c'mon.” Karkat grabs his arm abruptly, helping him from the floor. “You’ve been looking like utter hoofbeast shit lately. I think you need to get some sleep.” In his haste he runs Sollux into the doorframe, jostling him and bouncing his forehead off the hard chitin before easing him through. "Fuck, shit, shit." Sollux lets out a perfunctory growl, shaking his head and snarling to show his regrown teeth. “I think you’ll feel better if you get some sleep, okay? Fuck!”

Sollux says nothing at all during the process of being pushed into the recuperacoon, though his eyes drift closed as he curls up in the slime. Karkat sits near him, warm hands gently papping his horns and combing through his hair, until he falls asleep.

* * *

“You know,” Terezi says, staring up as though smelling the stars, “that’s how shit turns out for us, usually, to be completely fair. I mean it's usually disastrous. It would be stupid to blame you, and it would be even more stupid to blame me.” The landscape stretches out in an endless series of crests and troughs. A lot of promise lies in that new and glamorous world, and more than a few of their friends have felt too tired to start bothering with it.

“As usual, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Karkat fixes his eyes on the distant hills and clicks his fingershields on the roof tiles, posture rigid and tense with unhappiness.

“Sometimes you have this feeling that says hey, maybe you were born wrong!” she exclaims. Her legs stretch over the precipice, body tilted back to balance on her hands. As always she perches on the very edge; Karkat resists the urge to shout and pull her back. “Maybe you're missing something. You think, what am I doing here? What should I be doing here? Maybe, sometimes, living seems like an optional thing you can just decide not to do, especially since you know the alternative and it doesn’t suck that bad.”

“Uh,” Karkat says uncertainly. “I guess? Are you trying to tell me he has depression, because I’m pretty sure that’s a well known factoid that is not even slightly a new thing that just happened.”

“Sure, _that’s_ what I’m telling you.”

“Well, are you saying that _you_ -”

“Shut up.” Terezi stretches, inhales. “Anyway, I am pleased to note that the stars are fresher on this world. It takes a long time to learn how to smell them just right with everything else around, but once you get there...Not bad.”

“Yeah, okay.” He reaches tentatively out to take her hand where it sits on the roof tiles. She pulls it back and smiles at him, all teeth. The moonlight flickers clean and white from her glasses, her silhouette lean and strong in the pale light, and Karkat narrowly swallows down the questions he wants to ask her. “I bet. What are we going to do?”

She smiles and shrugs. "Who knows?"

* * *

Terezi perches on the edge of the recuperacoon, hands closed softly around the edge of the entrance. Her ears perk to the soft, regular sound of breathing, nose sampling the vaguely tangy aroma of sleep.

“I guess the thing I’m meant to be doing is letting you have it,” she says conversationally, dipping her toes into the slime. “Calling you out for being a coward and running away. Slapping you awake and telling you to get your shit together, since no one ever has their shit together unless I’m orchestrating everyone’s shit. Something like that.”

Sollux rolls over, mumbling.

“Yes, yes. Well, about the shit, that’s occasionally true! Not that I’m in the shit orchestrating business anymore. I've had more than enough of being prong-deep in places I never wanted any part of, to be honest. But as for the rest of that stuff…” She shrugs, resting her head casually on the doorframe. “Maybe I understand more than you might think. But as we _both_ know, there is no use talking about it.”

Stretching her legs forward, Terezi slides herself into the recuperacoon. “I think,” she says conspiratorially, “that it was all very fun while it lasted.” She draws a happy face on Sollux’s shoulder blade, little polka dots on his shoulder, a long set of lines down his back.

“There’s this role I’m meant to be playing where I care a lot about this!” she continues, smiling. “Where I shout these refreshing new stars down and slap you upside the little horns and never ever give up, just like one of those insipid romantic comedies. But I find that in fact, Colonel Mustard, I am not feeling any such scenario! It all seems a little _fake_ to me, a little gauche, to even imagine that anyone can have feelings that strong.” Her voice quiets as she curls up next to Sollux’s prone form and throws a casual arm over him, still smiling. “I’m going to tell you something, Colonel. I find that I have significant trouble feeling anything at all a great deal of the time, aside from maybe a little disappointed that I won’t be the only one anymore. And it is likely that I will miss you a great deal! But really, who am I to tell you what to do this time?”

The slime-smeared cuttlefish stares at the ceiling with blank button eyes. “The last time I chose what to do with you,” Terezi concludes, sniffing with mild distaste at Sollux's oily hair, “you died, after all.”


	7. and we all went to heaven in a little rowboat

Sollux sits quietly in his respiteblock, holding the plush cuttlefish in his lap. He brushes careful fingertips over the stitching and soft batting, the four small tendrils in the front, its two button eyes, but the color and the pattern of it is lost to him.

"Just for a while," he murmurs as he licks the last bit of blueberry jelly from his lower lip. Wiping a sticky spot of cardamom tea from his mouth, he lifts the cuttlefish to his face, closing his eyelids as he inhales and leans back in the computer chair. It still smells faintly briny, redolent of her in a way he had forgotten, and the feeling he gets as he falls asleep is not so much a feeling of departure as it is a feeling of coming back.

Even in the void he follows the smell somehow, floating until he finds the bright bubble in space. The input from his white eyes offers nothing but garbled, senseless data when he enters, light and dark and incomprehensible shapes. He realizes again with stunning, real immediacy that he is blind, not just in the uncertain physics of space but even here, that his ability to parse visual data has degraded entirely. It stops mattering when he smells the brine and hears the rustle of skirts.

"I came back," he says, closing his eyes against the unsettling light and darkness. "FF."

"I sea that!" Feferi answers brightly. His heart leaps at the sound. It seems strange that he could ever have forgotten a voice so familiar, the special emphasis on her puns, even though he has lost the shape of her face and the eyes behind her goggles. "What for?"

"For you." She makes a noncommittal noise and he hears the soft creak of a chair, the swishing of her skirts as she stands. "I mean, okay. So I'm kind of ashamed about my living situation," he tells her, unsure where she is but recognizing the smell of brine and the sound of her carved shell beads clicking as she moves toward him. Distantly he hears the ocean, or what he thinks the ocean probably sounds like, a sloshing liquid crash that goes on and on.

"Weird," she observes, the sound of her voice as cheerful as ever as she guides him to a chair. "What's wracktually wrong with your living situation?"

"The fact that I'm living. Mostly." He feels the weight of her hand on his head and looks up at where he imagines she is, gray and black that resolves vaguely but no longer feels familiar. He closes his eyes again. Seeming to understand, Feferi leans down and guides his hands to her face, letting him remember as he touches her closed eyelids and smiling mouth. "Where have you been?" he asks. "I missed you so fucking much, FF. I've been looking for you forever."

"I'm not actually going anywhere," she proclaims as she straightens up, "so that's retarded!"

"Uh. I guess?" he falters, deflated.

"We'll all end up in the same place. _We all float down here,_ " she adds in a hoarse whisper, brushing spidery fingers over his face before laughing, a bubbly sound that fails to remove the trace of creepiness lingering in the air. "You look happy. Didn't you like it with them?"

"Oh, you knew? Yeah. Being with them. I'm..." He stops, bony fingers tightening on his knees. "Yeah," he finally murmurs. "I was sort of happy. I was happy. Are you happy? How have you been?"

“Well mostly I’ve been _dead_ , stupid.”

“Um, aside from that, though-”

“Excellent! I’ve been going on swims again - which I missed, you don’t realize how much you liked your environment until it’s prawn - and I’ve been learning more about technology now that I can actually go wherever I want. And some Kanayas taught me how to sew, which is pretty krill. I mean, here you can dream up whatever you want to wear, but there's something about dreaming up the materials and making it all yourshellf. It’s nice.”

“That’s good,” he says, and means it. “Not that you’re dead, but...that you’re having new experiences while you’re dead? That you’re happy, I guess?”

"It’s okay. But you're not dead yet," she points out, her voice factual.

"But the rest of me will show up. I'll be all in one piece," he tells her, suddenly eager. "I was always going to come here."

"Yeah, you shore were! So why are you in such a hurry?" she asks pointedly, tapping her toes on the floor. "Maybe there's a reason you couldn't find your way here. Maybe it's fin that you're alive," she says, her face close to his, the ghostly puff of her breath on his lips. "Maybe you're so focused all the time on dying that you don't bother thinking about _not_ dying. All your life, talking about how doomed you are instead of being excited about what's happening. Boring!" she exclaims. “Being tragic is so _boring_. Ugh!”

"It's not like I can really help dying," he snaps, offended and uncertain. He had imagined a more climactic reunion, something grandiose and moving and totally unlike Feferi's casual acceptance of his presence. "It's a one-way fucking trip, FF."

"Reel-y?" she asks. He bristles at the smile in her voice. "You got out of it before. I don't think you're as set on the whole idea as you pretend to be! I think you still have choices."

"Like what?" he asks. "Half of me out in space and the other half sleepwalking all the time? What's the point? Maybe I've lived my whole life like this and I just want it to be over. Maybe I'm tired," he suddenly admits, hands curling into fists in his lap. "I've...always been tired, and the rest of my life feels so long-"

"Wow, maybe you could quit bitching about it for a minute and let me talk!" she suggests brightly. "Did you search for me that long just to deliver your shelliloquy? Cod, I almost forgot how much you carp about everyfin."

"Oh my god, _fine_ ," he mumbles, hands uncurling, mouth settling into a tense line. "Great, I fly across the whole grubfucking universe for this, and it takes literally forever, and-"

"Oh _seariously_ , come on. All you ever cared about was dying anyway! Remember? You spent your whole life talking about how you were going to die, then you died getting in the game, then your whole skillset was doom when you made it in, then you kept trying to sacrifice yourself and when anyone _else_ died you got all down on yourshellf-"

“Well, I mean...you kind of did die because of me.”

“No I _didn’t_ , and it’s really weird if you're about to conchclude I had to get murdered because of you and not because I decided to do the right thing and defend everyone. It’s a stupid trope, Sealux! Porrim told me all about it.”

"That’s sort of unfair,” he protests weakly. “I mean, let's be real, it was an ongoing motif.”

“What, that people you knew died? Whale, let me break it down for you. First off that’s a reelly biased shellection, since if someone you _don’t_ know dies, you won’t wracktually know about that. Second, that doesn’t make it coral to wrassume I didn’t make my own choices. Or that Aradia didn’t make her own choices, which were about other people and didn’t have anything to do with you anyway.”

“Well,” he contests hotly, then trails off. “You’re right actually, that’s...um. That would be sort of fucked up to think. Sorry. Who's Porrim?”

"Oh, who cares! Put that shelly cuttlefish away and live a little," she orders, ignoring him. "You're not missing anyfin, and I'm not letting you stay here. You’re not _allowed,_ even if I do fish our little feelings jams now and then. I mean, I do have my own afterlife." He twitches at the faint, tickling sweep of her hair all around him. “For reel. Go away, no one wants you here.”

“Fuck,” he says wonderingly, “I sort of forgot what a kick in the bulge you can be. Wow.” There are many things he wants to say; he wants to tell Feferi that she will never be less important, that no one can replace her and she never replaced anyone else, that somehow no one ever does. He takes in a soft breath and files it all away with practiced ease, compartmentalizing the strange welter of feelings without a word. Her hair brushes his face. Cold lips press against his forehead.

"Thanks, FF," he murmurs instead, his body dissolving into foam as the sound of the ocean fades away.


	8. there was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

“Ready?” Sollux asks, winding a bolt of rainbow fabric around Terezi’s arms. The material is gauzy but tough, sliced and braided into a soft riot of colors that hold firm when he feeds the end of the rope between the loops above her elbows to draw her arms back. A simple bowline knot secures it.

“Oh, no,” she laughs from the chair, her face so close to him that he can smell every spearmint point of her smile as he leans down to sniff his handiwork. “It comes as quite a surprise, this thing we have literally just finished talking about, so I must declare myself _unready!_ ”

“Mm, cool, but gimme a yes or no here. I suck at this kind of thing.” A strange sense of ceremony pervades the rainbowy tent they have built out of fabric scraps. The torn ribbons drift and sway in particolored chaos, secured only to an umbrella dangling from the ceiling.

“I know. Yeah, I’m great. Couldn’t be better.” He winds the braided rope over her bare shoulders to make a simple harness, smelling close to ensure the pressure avoids her joints. One turn passes from her shoulder to her ribs, passing between her small rumblespheres, and wraps around near the base of her ribcage; he kneels to sniff more closely, ensuring that the fit is good when he feeds the rope through, before standing to bring the end up over her other shoulder. Another bowline secures it.

“It’s okay? Not too tight?”

“A little loose,” she says, “if you want to know the truth. But whatever! We weren’t planning any aerial acrobatics this evening.” He can still smell it, her lips drawn back tight across that mint-white.

“Mm.” He draws a fingertip across her mouth and feels it close, a faint strange twist forming at the corner once her teeth are hidden, and carefully presses his lips and tongue to the tired circles under her eyes.

“Ugh, what are you doing?” He shrugs, combing long fingers through her hair until he finds the roots of her horns.

“No idea,” he admits as he rubs soothing circles into the velvet. “I don’t even know where to start. Are you still okay?”

“Quit asking me that,” she sighs. “God, you weirdo, I can feel every single one of my genitals retracting up into my viscera over here. I have a cornucopia around my lungs at this very moment.”

Sollux snickers, pulling back from her horns. Part of him considers trying to shut the jokes down sometimes, now and then, in serious moments. He has never known what might replace them. He turns the thought over and lets it go, the memory of velvet echoing in his fingers and the salt-teal taste still faint on his lips. There might be time for that someday.

“Some pretty weird parts of the internet might be interested in all these viscera slash cornucopia ideas.” he offers instead, smiling crookedly. “I mean, not including me.”

“Pretty sure I scent the bitterness of deceit.”

“Whatever, TZ, I’m not on trial for my weird food-bearing vessel fetish over here.”

“That could be arranged. I may very well arrange that.”

“Sure.” He reaches out and pulls at the ribbons, setting the tent spinning and tangling. The experience disconcerts, makes the world twirl and rock and tilt crazily. He thinks he smells the white of her smile eclipsed for just a moment as it destroys her equilibrium. “Maybe so,” he adds, kneeling before the chair and licking his lips. With a little attention he knows he can coax her bulge from its sheath. “Maybe later.”

* * *

“Ready?” Karkat twitches at the brush of fingers against his lips and his blunt teeth, closing his mouth in a grimace. Being blindfolded leaves him edgy, hypersensitized and startling at every light touch to his face. The flavor Sollux leaves on his lips is bright and immediately recognizable.

“It’s orange,” he says flatly.

“Got it in one try, KK.”

“I mean...it’s orange. It’s colored orange! What the fuck kind of shitty example is this to start out with?” He licks the marmalade from his teeth with an irritable snarl, vulnerable and annoyed. “I mean, it’s already idiotic that you want me to explain colors to you in this nook-over-horns backward way, but-”

“Mm-hm, yeah, I’m really patronizing you right now.” The soft grate of jars sliding on the table rings out and Karkat awaits the next gentle touch, jumps despite himself as Sollux’s finger slips gently into his mouth. He gives it a perfunctory lick. The soft brush on skin on his lips leaves the nerve endings tingling; Sollux moves just enough to stroke the skin, the sensation enough to make him flush.

“Bmmphberry.” He withdraws, shaking his head and licking his lips to dispel the feeling. “It’s blue. Fuck you, you’re obviously doing this on purpose.”

“KK, don’t be stupid, how many things can I possibly feed you that fit under the specific subset of stuff named after colors?” Karkat thinks it through, brow furrowing over the blindfold, as he listens to the soft rasp of a jar lid on glass.

“Fine. Do your worst.” Sollux presses two fingers into his mouth slowly, stroking tender and light across his tongue in a way that makes him shudder. There is no way that any part of this is accidental, he knows with growing certainty, and despite the annoyance a fond warmth grows in his nook. Sollux remains prone to the same lapses in energy, the same changeable temper, the same listlessness and fits of mania, but he feels present since awakening in a way that Karkat has missed more than he wants to say.

That makes the routine no less irritating. “Well, KK?” Sollux asks innocently.

“It’s peach, you little shit.”

“Hmm. What color?” Sollux persists as his fingertips linger on Karkat’s lower lip. Despite himself, he trembles a little at the soft contact, the delicate scratch of fingershields as Sollux’s hand begins to pull back. “Smells a little candy-red from here.”

“Oh, it’s a little…” Karkat shakes the blindfold free, bares his teeth at the sight of Sollux’s grin, and grabs his retreating hand. “Well I’d have to say it’s a little bit peach-colored, you _festering bulgesore_.” He pulls Sollux out of the chair fast enough to make him yelp, catching him around the waist and making sure to snarl directly into his ear. “And oh, hey, guess what? It’s my turn to give you some flavors to think about.”

It's a cliche, he knows. It's exactly the sort of thing they give him shit about. But Sollux gives a satisfying little shiver against him and kisses back with enthusiasm, and Karkat has to admit to himself that things are, as much as he will never, ever admit it, not so bad at all.

“Eheheh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason this anon started writing, back in the day, was to make some kinkmeme anons smile. Helped my heart through a rough time also. It felt good to make someone else happy, even if I was just writing silly fanfiction for them, so thanks for reading.
> 
> The time has come for me to shed my skin yet again and become someone new - a liberating experience. Goodbye!


End file.
